Tired but happy!

We are back from the Scrapstars Retreat and we had a wonderful time.  As always Caroline Lovett organised a fabulous event and the weekend went seamlessly; the teachers - Kathy Rogers, Penny Kafai, Louise Collins and Emma Trout - were inspiring and we are all taking beautiful projects home with us and lots of techniques and ideas to inspire our future work.  I cannot recommend this Retreat more highly and as soon as the next date is announced we will let you know so that you can come along and join in the fun :).  Nicky and I just about managed to squeeze the shop into the car and we were so grateful to all the ladies who helped us unload and set up when we arrived and pack up again at the end.  It really has been a fabulous weekend and although we feel a little weary around the edges today it was definetely worth it!

Caroline Lovett is not only a very wonderful organiser of Retreats but also a very talented Scrapbooker in her own right and I am delighted that she has, once again, produced this beautiful layout, this time using the 'Madame Boutique' Kit.

For this page I just found the papers so beautiful and the patterns so intricate it seemed a waste to do anything too fussy.  But I do enjoy a bit of cutting so I didn't go over the top, I just cut the lady and some flowers from the Lingerie paper (on the left), and also the large Rose with some of its stem etc from the Corset paper (which has the large flowers on it).  The rest was quite straight forward as Bellaboo's kit has so many die cuts and embellishments in it, you don't need anything else. I cut a quote from the Bloomers paper and I have mounted this on dimensionals in the left hand corner.  The rose and heart that are underneath it are from the bag of diecuts as are the little flowers, I love those with the long wires that you can twist and add texture.  I made a rosette with the cream cotton lace; Kate always provides a number of coordinating ribbons with the kits, it's hard to choose what to use.  I also used the manikin chipboard embellishment from a pack of two that is included in the kit.  Because I used the doily paper, I decided to triple matt my photograph, as the papers are so gorgeous and I wanted to add them to the layout.  I rolled the corner of these for effect.  I so wanted to cut the doily paper in half so that I could use it on my next layout, but it just leant itself to staying whole for this page.  There is so much left of this kit, whole sheets of paper I haven't cut into yet, so watch out for more projects made with Madame Boutique!

We don't have that many of the 'Madame Boutique' Kits left so if you have been inspired by Caroline's gorgeous layout you may want to get your hands on a kit fast :).

Happy Crafting!

Kate xx